


Pearls of Wisdom

by DT Maxwell (Draya)



Series: Coffee & Carbuncles [11]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Arcanima, Carbuncle Shenanigans, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Highlander Hyur Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Lalafell Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Magic and Science, Multiple Warriors of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), POV Alternating, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Worldbuilding, do not drink anything while reading this, i will not be held responsible for carbonated beverages going up noses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22759810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draya/pseuds/DT%20Maxwell
Summary: Or,The Art of Carbuncle Summoning~Scientific breakthroughs for fun, profit, and accidental-but-temporary emotional trauma! Aymeric, thankfully, won't hold (much) of a grudge against Rereha for making him choke on his tea.
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel/Warrior of Light, Lucia goe Junius & Warrior of Light, Warrior of Light & Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Series: Coffee & Carbuncles [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/807090
Comments: 31
Kudos: 38





	Pearls of Wisdom

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, put the drink down _right now,_ seventy-five percent of this fic is Rereha's POV which means _full and total irreverence is now in effect._

Rereha threw open the doors to Aymeric’s office, shite-eating grin firmly plastered on her face as she skipped inside, and sang out, “Congratulations! It’s twins!”

Two things happened.

First, as soon as the doors opened, but before Rereha even opened her mouth, Lucia, she of finely honed Frumentarium instincts and years of friendship with a lalafell infamous across the realm for her Theatrics and Shenanigans, reached out and yanked the multitude of reports on the desk in front of Aymeric out of the way.

Second, Aymeric, who had been taking a sip of tea at the exact moment Rereha entered the office, choked and spat out said tea across his desk—and where all of the paperwork had once been not even a second before—in the most glorious spit take Rereha had _ever_ engendered. A tiny part of her was saddened at the waste of perfectly good tea, but, _wow,_ that had been _spectacular._ She gave herself a mental pat on the back and came to a stop in the middle of the office, grin widening to manic levels.

Lucia pounded Aymeric on the back between his shoulder blades as he coughed and sputtered, stopping only when the Lord Commander wheezed out, wide-eyed, voice high-pitched and halfway to a full-blown panic, _“WHAT?!”_

Rereha clasped her hands behind her back and rocked back on her heels. “You heard me,” she said, sing-song.

He wheezed again, wordlessly this time, and stared at her with huge blue eyes as all the color slowly drained from his face. He opened his mouth, but only a strangled _croak_ emerged. The grip on his teacup slackened, and Lucia hurriedly whisked it out of his hands and set it aside as she narrowed her eyes at Rereha, one blonde brow slowly ticking upwards.

 _Really?_ That expression said.

…All right, perhaps she could have phrased it a _little_ differently to the man who was the bastard son of the last archbishop. Oh, well. She had committed to it, no time to backtrack.

Especially since Synnove had finally arrived, having been forced to take the stairs when Rereha commandeered the elevator up to the Lord Commander’s Seat to beat her there.

Her friend pelted into the office at full tilt, wearing an even wider, more manic grin than Rereha herself was sporting, Galette determinedly hanging onto her left shoulder and Ivar dangling from her right. She was still dressed for the cozy, well-insulated confines of the Arcanists’ Guild offices and laboratories rather than winter, never mind the everwinter of Coerthas: cotton shirt in storm grey under an unbuttoned deep green waistcoat, black slops rolled up to the knees, strappy sandals, everything wrinkled to the seven hells and back because she had been living out of her office for a sennight (again). The bags under her gleaming green eyes were dark and _huge_ , and the thick plait of hair down to her waist was nearly half undone and ghostly-hued from constantly running her chalk-covered hands through it.

Synnove was a godsdamned _mess,_ but for all that her grin was dangerously manic, her overall expression was radiant, easily able to outshine the sun.

The Highlander swerved around Rereha to smack first into Lucia. The Garlean yelped in surprise as Synnove lifted her off her feet in a bear hug, no small feat considering Lucia was taller by a few ilms and also wearing full formal _plate._ (Galette headbutted Lucia sympathetically.) Synnove set her down again and gave her a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek—Lucia blinked rapidly, too stunned to respond as she stumbled and recovered her balance—and then turned her attention to Aymeric.

She did a brief twirl on the ball of her right foot—the carbuncles made distressed noises at this: _Mommy, please stop with the spinning/Mama, nooooo not again_ —and came to a stop next to Aymeric, grinning down at him like a lunatic. He briefly glanced at her (flat) stomach, then up at her beaming face, mouth working soundlessly as he tried to regain his ability to speak. Before he could manage that, however, Synnove grasped his face in her hands and swooped down to kiss him. Aymeric flailed helplessly for a moment in shock, then gripped her elbows and went limp and— _wow._

Lucia coughed and glanced away and up, finding a particular spot on the ceiling of _great_ interest, a light blush on her cheeks, while both Galette and Ivar recoiled and loudly gagged. Rereha wolf-whistled and applauded, impressed but also surprised. Gods _damn,_ Synnove. That officially outdid every filthy kiss described in any of the trashy romance novels Rereha had ever read, and she had read a _lot_ of trashy romance novels in her life.

(Also, if she was focusing on _that_ , she wasn’t focusing on her sister-by-choice with said sister-by-choice’s tongue down her lover’s throat, _ugh ew ew ew grosssssss._ )

Synnove drew back, leaving Aymeric stunned and breathless and gaping like a fish at her as she did another, more energetic twirl. (Lucia ducked around Aymeric’s chair to the other side of the desk to avoid getting smacked by flying carbuncle tails, or potentially flying carbuncles as they struggled to hold on and whined in protest.) She raised her arms, shouting, “I’m a fucking _GENIUS!_ ”

“Oh, Fury’s spear,” Lucia said in exasperation, “which laws of reality did you break this time?”

“Not broken,” Synnove replied cheerfully, “just bent!”

Rereha meandered over to the desk and stood up on tiptoe to grasp the edge. With a small grunt of effort, she pulled herself up and clambered onto the desktop, momentarily sprawling on her back and ignoring Lucia’s angry hiss as she disturbed the piled-up paperwork. “Our darling Synnove,” said Rereha primly, lacing her fingers together across her stomach, “has had a breakthrough on her artificial aetheric gemstone infusion process.”

“I’m a fucking genius,” Synnove said again, sing-song. “But I did have a little help…”

* * *

Synnove dropped into her chair with a soft groan of relief, shaking off her boots and kicking them into the space beneath her desk. She had made it back to Mealvaan’s Gate just in time to assist with getting all the storm shutters closed before the nor’wester hit Limsa Lominsa, and the wind now howled as it pushed through the city, so strong it was raining _sideways._ The skywatchers were reporting the storm would last another day, possibly two, and if the temperature kept dropping, they might even see a proper snowfall on Vylbrand for the first time in ten years. The Admiral had ordered the city shut down earlier in the day in advance of the storm, the harbor closed, and Limsa Lominsa had been eerily still as her citizens battened down the figurative hatches and got under cover.

The Gate was one of the best places to weather a storm, so Synnove would be camping in her office and living out of the mess hall, the same as many of the other arcanists who had homes outside the city and hadn’t been able to safely leave before the nor’wester struck. Her office at the top of the northeast tower was well-insulated, the Guild larders were well-stocked, and she had a freshly laundered pile of pillows and blankets with which to turn her couch into a nest or pillow fort. And, most importantly: she had _treats._

She grinned and dragged the pastry box sitting at the corner of her desk towards herself. The second box full of goodies from her favorite Ala Mhigan café was safely stashed in a _locked_ coldbox, and Galette’s phase-shift functionality disabled, so that box should hopefully last the remainder of the storm. Meanwhile, the carbuncles were enjoying their individual spoils from this first box: Galette was face down in a huge bowl of rose water malabi; Tyr’s muzzle was rapidly being stained purple by his blueberry _papanaşi_ ; and Ivar had an entire tray of Grisheld Reeve’s cinnamon and dragon pepper baklava all to himself.

Synnove wiggled her fingers in delight and opened the box, carefully removing the four squares of amandina cake that were _alllllll_ for _her_ and setting them on a clean plate fetched from beneath a pile of paperwork. She rummaged up a fork from one of her desk drawers, and was almost about ready to settle in. Now she just needed reading material.

She reached out to another corner of her desk, hooking her fingers over the edge of a wooden box full of tomestones and pulling it over. The box was neatly divided into sections for different types and she tapped her finger against the box’s rim as she considered the selection. There were the old standbys, full of compiled data on a random assortment of topics ranging from mathematics to gemology, but… Hm, no, something new. Lucia had, for Starlight, gifted her a set of tomestones one of her contacts had, ah, _liberated_ from the laboratory of some chief engineer of one of the Garlean legions, Synnove couldn’t remember which one. Surely there was something on one of those that would pique her interest.

Lucia’s gifts weren’t on the top tray in the box, however, and Synnove lifted it to check the bottom one. Not those, nor those, but—ahah! There they were. She fished out three, set them aside, switched the trays so the bottom one was now on top, and dug out her tablet with the tome reader port from under another stack of papers.

(Perhaps she should do her paperwork instead?

…Nah.)

She clicked one of the tomestones into the port on her tablet and let the translation program run that would turn Old Allagan into a horrifying hodgepodge of Eorzean, Garlean, and Hannish for her to muddle through without needing two separate dictionaries and three grammar primers. (The Echo was useful most of the time, but it was absolute shite at turning highly technical Allagan textbooks into only equally highly technical Eorzean. Better to just read the things in the three scientific languages she knew to which the translator could find an accurate match _somewhere_.) As the program ran, Synnove resettled herself in her chair to sit cross-legged, and cut off a bite from one of the amandina squares with her fork to pop into her mouth.

Synnove closed her eyes and hummed as she slowly chewed. Mmmm. Layers of rich chocolate buttercream sandwiched between chocolate sponge that had been gently soaked in a caramel-rum syrup, all covered in a layer of almost ganache-like chocolate fondant. Auntie’s version used almond buttercream, but the Reeves’ version was just as good.

As she savored a second bite, her tome reader chimed a cheery little ditty— _duhna na na na na na na-nana_!—that Rereha had somehow managed to program into it, signaling that the tomestone had been fully translated. Synnove swallowed her cake and picked up the reader, thumbing to the menu.

_The Journal of Mathematical Physics, volumes 101-200, from the Meracydian Institute of Physics._

Synnove gasped in delight and hugged her tablet. “Oh, fuck _yes._ Lucia, you are my new favorite person.”

The next few hours passed by quickly: reading the articles in each journal, occasionally gloating at realizing she or one of her colleagues had figured out a matter that had puzzled the ancient Allagans or frowning thoughtfully at new concepts and taking notes; nibbling intermittently on her cakes, rather than eating immediately one after another, so they lasted longer; breaking from reading, spine cracking unpleasantly from sitting hunched over for so long, to first clean her carbuncles’ faces of sticky sweets, then to head down to the mess for dinner; and finally cozying up on her couch in a nest of pillows with her tablet to continue reading, Tyr cuddling against her right hip and Galette and Ivar burrowing into her left. The last amandina cake was balanced on a plate on the back of the couch next to her head and the lights all turned on, casting a warm glow throughout her office, the arched gable of the tower ceiling lost in shadow.

Synnove hummed thoughtfully as she skimmed through volumes 144 and 145 of the journal. As with all academic treatises, some scientists were better writers than others, and the past few volumes of the journal hadn’t been _bad,_ just…not very engaging. She flicked back to the menu and selected the table of contents for volume 146.

No, no, no, _emphatically_ no, n—wait, yes. Yes, Roksana Blackspark, she had written a few articles in this collection of journals that were entertaining, informative, _and_ thought-provoking; at least half the notes she had scribbled out were because of her. Shame she wasn’t as prolific as some of her colleagues, but that always seemed to be the case with the genuinely talented ones. And this article seemed especially promising: mapping aetheric polarity for spell customization.

She had the sneaking suspicion that sharing this one with the rest of the Guild would lead to some truly spectacular explosions.

Snuggling down into the cuddle pile with a gleeful chortle, Synnove reached for her plate of amandina, setting it down in her lap. (Galette’s nose twitched in her sleep, but she was too cozy and too full to properly awaken to investigate the sugar less than a fulm away.) Cake easily at hand, she began reading, picking up her fork without looking and cutting off another bite to eat.

Synnove was halfway through her cake when her face and hands went slack, fork and tablet both nearly dropping, and her jaw falling open as she stared at the tablet screen.

…What.

> _While the astral-aspected elements fire and wind have proven to be remarkably stable in self-maintaining neutral polarity, levin frequently skews too far towards astral—or even umbral, in rare cases—to be reliable at high voltages beyond explosive thaumaturgical uses. A similar problem exists with water and ice, which frequently skews too far to umbral, whereas earth aether will achieve polar equilibrium on its own._
> 
> _The following equations take this lack of natural equilibrium into account when stabilization is required…_

**_What._ **

“What the _fuck,_ ” Synnove said softly as she read, feeling as if she had been clubbed over the head by a gigas’s club. The equations bore a passing resemblance to classical aetheromagnetic theorems on polarization density, except completely turned on its head.

There was no way the problem with her aetheric infusion project was that simple. Swiving _aetheric polarization._ No. Swiving. _Way._

And yet…

It was one of the most basic principles of _magic,_ not just arcanima: astral elements and umbral elements. It was such an accepted, unquestioned foundation that she had never even _considered_ that the three elements most commonly used by arcanists for their carbuncles _were not all the same primary polarity._ Every element _could_ manifest as either polarity, but Roksana Blackspark was correct, now that Synnove properly thought about it: wind, earth, and fire were much, much more likely to be found in a stable state. Even the Guild’s enormous aether batteries, all the way down in subbasement twelve, had been initially tricky to install until they found the right combination of overgrown elemental clusters, with most of the problems coming from the water, ice, and levin clusters.

Of course trying to infuse any sort of gem with those three elements specifically was going to fail, _they were fucking overaspected to astral or umbral._ The equations didn’t fucking work as they should because they were built to account for elements that naturally occurred in stable states, and so the infusions fizzled and the gemstones cracked and no carbuncles could manifest.

But.

But if she _did_ account for instability, or, in fact, deliberately found crystals with which to infuse gems that were of opposite polarities so that the final infusion _was_ stable…

A new thought made itself known, and Synnove stuffed the rest of her cake in her mouth, set the plate and fork aside, bookmarked her spot in the journal, and opened up the note taking program, yanking the stylus from the side of the case. As she chewed, she began scribbling in frantic shorthand. Perhaps in addition to ensuring stable aetheric polarity, she could also try infusion over time as well? Even when artificially infusing emeralds, topazes, and rubies, the stones still cracked every one time out of eight. Certainly, working with water, levin, and ice aether would benefit from a slower infusion speed, as it would allow her to keep a better eye on maintaining polar equilibrium, and if that issue was what was affecting the failures for wind, earth, and fire, then that would be two problems solved.

…Perhaps _three,_ Synnove sucking in a deep breath and her heart pounding as she wrote. A proper balance of aetheric polarization combined with a slow enough infusion potentially meant that she could, theoretically, infuse _any_ precious stone she desired, not just ones with a specific hardness and durability. Of course, the equations would need to be further adjusted to take into account the specific chemical properties of the specific gems and how they would need to interact with different elemental aether, but that, while difficult and tedious, was still doable.

Synnove began to vibrate with excitement and she let herself indulge in a wide, half-mad grin.

* * *

“Obviously I didn’t come up with the correct solutions _immediately,_ ” Synnove said, practically buzzing as she finished explaining, “but Roksana Blackspark’s equations proved an excellent starting point. And it WORKED!” She threw her arms up in the air again—Galette and Ivar groaned, once more nearly losing their grip—and danced in place, cackling.

Aymeric was slowly beginning to regain his color, though he was still a bit wide about the eyes and generally poleaxed in appearance. Lucia, not having had the shock of her life nor been snogged until her brain was a puddle, tilted her head thoughtfully, a smile slowly beginning to grow across her features. “And what,” she said, excitement coloring her voice, “did you use as a gemstone for proof of concept?”

“Gem _stones,_ ” said Synnove with unmistakable glee. She pulled up the left sleeve of her shirt and thrust her arm out towards Lucia, hand bent upwards. On her wrist, almost glowing against her bronze skin and the green aetheric ink of her tattoos, was the thin braided leather bracelet on which she kept the emerald, topaz, and ruby that were the foci from where Galette, Tyr, and Ivar manifested.

Two new additions hung from the well-worn braid: a pair of truly massive pearls, each perfectly spherical and equal in shape and size to one another, as big as the first phalange of Synnove’s thumb. One was black, with a gorgeous purple iridescence; the second was white with a lovely overtone of sky blue.

In showing off the pearls to Lucia, Synnove had inadvertently positioned her wrist almost directly in front of Aymeric’s face. He finally shook himself to full awareness, crossing his eyes to stare at the bracelet. He said, “Are those the pearls I gave you for Starlight?”

“Yes, they are!” Synnove chirped. “I hadn’t yet decided how I wanted to use them, and considering the oddity of their creation, I wondered if infusing them at the same time might produce interesting results.” She giggled in delight. “And it did!”

Rereha knew the pearls quite well: they had originally been in her mother’s collection before Shushuha sold them to Aymeric (at a friends and family discount, of course). They were properly twin pearls, found in the same giant clam at the estuary of the White Maiden where it emptied into the Strait of Merlthor at the Yafaem Saltmoor. They had a _very_ odd aetheric signature, per Mama’s description (not quite water-aspected, not quite levin), and were unable to be separated more than six ilms before one or the other would… _blink_ back to the side of its sibling. And the clam itself had been the only one still living in the bed: half of the clams in the bed, based on the decay reported from the divers who found the pearls, had been killed from ceruleum poisoning, runoff from the Battle of Silvertear Skies, and the other half had been warped beyond all recognition into the sickly orange crystal growths left by wild aether from the Calamity.

Mama hadn’t been able to sell the pair, no interested buyers in all the years she owned them. Ill luck pearls, supposedly. But Rereha had mentioned them off-handedly to Aymeric while he had been bouncing Starlight gift ideas for Synnove off her and Heron, and he had lit up at the description of them. Synnove, he reasoned, would be _delighted_ by a pair of aetherically strange pearls, even if she couldn’t find an immediate use for them.

(He had been absolutely correct, too; Synnove had shoved the box containing the pearls under nearly everyone’s nose to show them off, squealing in excitement about how Aymeric had gotten them for her and _let me tell you the story about them_ —)

“Twin carbuncles!” Synnove cheered. “I had to infuse them at the same time, so they each contain levin and water aether, but the black pearl absorbs levin more readily, and the white pearl more water.”

“So,” Aymeric said hesitantly, a hint of relief in his voice, “you _aren’t_ pregnant, then?”

“What?” said Synnove, rearing back with a frown. “No! Why would—” She went from confused to unamused in a heartbeat and turned her head to level a poisonous glare on a certain lalafell. “ _REREHA._ ”

Ooooh, reverb. But not, _I’m going to toss you from the top of the Mizzenmast and into the harbor_ , levels of reverb. More like, _I’m not sharing any of Aunt Angharad’s treats with you._

Rereha shrugged and grinned at her, fairly confidently she wasn’t going to be grievously injured today and that if she was denied Ala Mhigan treats, she could just go to the source of them and make big, sad eyes until Angharad Greywolfe caved. “It’s _me,_ ” she said. “Since when have I _ever_ passed up the opportunity to make the obvious joke?”

Synnove gave her a last, vicious look, before turning back to Aymeric with a smile. The elezen had his hand over his mouth, trying and failing to stifle his chuckle.

“Would you like to meet them?” Synnove asked.

“It would be my honor, my love,” Aymeric said fondly, Lucia nodding in agreement beside him.

The arcanist clapped in excitement, spinning on the ball of her foot (Galette and Ivar shrieked and scrambled to hold on), calling out, “Tyr!” and peering down—and stopped, frowning, at the lack of enormous topaz carbuncle by her side. She looked around quizzically. “Where’s Tyr?”

A muffled _boof_ echoed down the hall, from the direction of the Congregation’s lift. _Coming, Mama!_

Synnove relaxed, bouncing on her toes, ignoring the upset whining of her other two carbuncles trying to stay on her shoulders. Rereha snickered and sat upright, settling herself to sit cross-legged on the edge of Aymeric’s desk.

A few moments later, Tyr trotted into the office, carrying a wicker basket in his mouth. _Sorry, Mama,_ he warbled around the handle. He came right up to Synnove and sat down at her feet. _I didn’t want to jostle the babies and had to wait for the lift._

“Aww, you’re such a good big brother,” Synnove cooed, leaning down to scratch behind his ears. Galette and Ivar rolled their eyes and muttered about _mama’s boy_ while Tyr boofed happily, ignoring the two. While Synnove didn’t say anything, she _did_ exaggeratedly shrug her shoulders, jostling her troublemakers; Galette and Ivar yelped, but subsided.

She took the basket from Tyr—who, free of his burden, gave a deep, brassy _maow!_ of hello to Aymeric and Lucia—and set it down in front of Aymeric. “Ready to meet everyone, sweethearts?” she said, sing-song, leaning over the container. (Galette and Ivar used the opportunity to scramble fully onto her shoulders; Galette sat primly, carefully balanced, while Ivar flopped on his belly so he was draped over his perch.)

Two excited cheeps came from inside the basket, only slightly muffled by the wicker. _Yeah!_

Synnove removed the basket’s lid with a flourish.

A soft green blanket was immediately revealed, under which two forms wriggled. Two little noses poked from beneath the cloth, twitching as the carbuncles to which they were attached scented the air. Then, peeping in excitement, they burst out into the open, pulling themselves up to stand braced on the rim of the basket. _HI!_

Rereha had, of course, already seen them, but she couldn’t help clasping her hands together and turning into a lump of lalafell mush, even as Lucia gasped in delight and Aymeric visibly melted. The baby carbuncles—and she needed to come up with a cute moniker for that concept; carbunkit? Carbunclet?—were _tiny,_ just big enough for each one to sit comfortably in Synnove’s hands when she cupped them together. They were round and squishy, like a cross between oversized marshmallows and Heavensturn mochi, their legs still stubby and paws itty-bitty, and had yet to grow into their ears and tails: the former were as long as their bodies, and the fluffy trios of the latter as big as the rest of their bodies.

And they weren’t just cute, they were _pretty._ One was a fathomless black, like the inky depths of the ocean, but as its fur caught the light, it iridesced with an amethyst overlay. The other was the pure, perfect white of midsummer clouds, with the winter sunlight streaming into the office drawing out flashes of blue. The only other spot of color on either was the traditional red triangle cap between their ears and above their huge black eyes.

The twins trilled another high-pitched greeting. _HIIIIIIIII!_

Synnove, beaming fit to burst, said, “Aymeric, Lucia, I’d like you to meet Amandina and Roksana.” She gently booped the black carbuncle first, then the white one, right between their ears. Amandina wiggled her ears, squinting her eyes closed happily, and Roksana tilted her head back to yip a quick _hi mommy!_ before turning her attention back to the people in front of her and her sister, excitedly waving a paw.

“Roksana, I can understand, but _Amandina?_ ” Aymeric laughed, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, shush, you, there’s precedent,” Synnove snarked back and jerked her thumb at Galette, who puffed out her chest in response. “It’s not as if it’s a _well-known_ Abalathian dessert, either, I can get away with another dessert-named carbuncle.”

Rereha leaned over to stage whisper, “And she would have named Roksana ‘Lucia,’ but in Gyr Abania, it’s bad luck to name someone after a person who’s still among the living.”

Synnove nodded, smiling, even as Lucia blushed with pleasure and said wonderingly, “They’re so _small._ ”

“That’s intentional,” said Synnove, petting the carbunclets (Rereha liked that term best so far) again. They both emitted squeaky purrs, still learning how to make the sound. “The aether infusion needs to be _very_ slow to prevent damage to their pearls, so they currently have just enough to manifest. I’ve put in a request for more water and levin crystals acquired from elemental sprites, but it will be a while before I have the requisite amounts to get them to full size, never mind be combat capable. So, for now: baby carbuncles!”

The twins cheered.

Rereha muttered under her breath, “Carefully programmed to be actual hypothetical carbuncle _babies,_ not just carbuncles in miniature…”

Synnove reached out to attempt to smack her upside the head. Rereha, however, using the knowledge acquired from twenty plus years of friendship, rolled backwards off the desk, catching herself on the edge with both hands as Synnove’s arm whiffed through empty air, then pulled herself back up onto her perch with a smug grin. Aymeric coughed to disguise his laugh while all five carbuncles giggled. Synnove huffed and rolled her eyes, but a smirk twitched at the corner of her mouth.

“And now for the rest of the introductions…” Synnove pointed to Lucia, whose expression had steadily become more and more besotted the longer she stared at the tiny carbuncles in their basket. (Reasonable: the babies were _obscenely_ adorable.) “This,” Synnove said to the twins, “is Lucia! She gave me the tomestone that ultimately helped my breakthrough on aetheric infusion.”

Amandina and Roksana cheered again, tapping their paws excitedly on the edge of the basket. _HI, AUNT LUCIA!_

Lucia made the tiniest, girliest squeal Rereha had ever heard, not just from the woman in question, but ever _period_. “Oh, hello, sweethearts,” she cooed. She took off one of her gauntlets and held her bare hand out to them; they immediately headbutted her fingers, cheeping happily, and she smiled so hard her face must have hurt as she gently pet first Roksana, then Amandina. “Aren’t you just the most precious darlings.”

The twins preened as Synnove chuckled and gently stroked them between their ears. “And this,” she continued, pointing to the Lord Commander, the babies obediently swiveling their heads to follow, “is Aymeric! He’s the one who gave me your pearls.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Amandina, Miss Roksana,” Aymeric said, at his most charmingly formal as he smiled down at them.

The babies blinked up at the elezen. Tilted their heads back to look at Synnove. Looked back up at Aymeric. Back at their mama. Up at Aymeric. Looked at each other.

Rereha would swear up, down, and sideways that in the split-second they exchanged glances, those two suddenly wore expressions that could out-do Galette while channeling her Garuda-egi subprogramming at her most demonically mischievous. Galette herself peered down at the pair, perturbed, one ear cocked upright and the other sideways in a perfect ninety-degree angle, while Ivar narrowed his eyes suspiciously at them. Tyr burbled a questioning little _maow._

The twins turned back to Aymeric, their faces all sweetness and light once more, and chirped, in chorus, _HI, PAPA!_

Lucia and Rereha, in unintentional unison, slapped their hands over their own mouths, staring first at the baby carbuncles, before slowing turning to look at Synnove and Aymeric. Synnove and Aymeric, meanwhile, both _froze,_ their minds clearly screeching to a near-audible halt, smiles still locked in place but their eyes widening to almost impossible proportions in shock. Deep, fluorescent blushes crawled up both their faces; Aymeric’s ears practically _glowed._ Amandina and Roksana started bouncing up and down excitedly, shaking the basket, their ears wiggling and tails twitching, while their delighted yipping chant of _hi papa hi papa hi papa hi papa_ echoed through the office and probably down the corridor.

Ivar made an absolutely _disgusted_ noise, covering his ears with his paws in an attempt to drown out his baby sisters. Galette and Tyr, meanwhile, exchanged a very thoughtful look. Galette flicked an ear. Tyr nodded.

Then they, too, swiveled their heads to look at Aymeric, and proceeded to join the chanting with unrepentant glee: _Hi, Papa!_

Ivar groaned. _No. No, I **refuse.**_ His siblings all ignored him, simply chanted louder.

Synnove and Aymeric were flushed so red it was beginning to appear painful. Aymeric made a strangled noise in the back of his throat as he dragged his gaze upward to meet Synnove’s. Synnove opened her mouth to say something, jaw working furiously, but all that came out was a high-pitched squeak.

Rereha and Lucia made the mistake of glancing at one another out of the corners of their eyes. As soon as their eyes met, they both _broke,_ Lucia sputtering and snorting, bringing her other, still-gauntleted hand up to her face in an attempt to muffle the sound of her undignified laughter. Rereha, of course, had never _had_ any dignity, and just threw back her head to ugly cackle like a hyena.

Finally, Aymeric managed words, strained as they were—but with the shock was mixed equal parts delighted laughter and joy: “You’re the one who breaks the news about this to your aunt.”

Synnove squeaked again.

Rereha cackled harder.

And the carbuncles—sans Ivar, still moaning in disgust—kept chanting, _Hi, Papa!_

**Author's Note:**

> I have had that opening scene in my head for _three fucking years._ I wasn't going to give Synnove more buncle babies until Yoshi-P finally gave me more egis and glamours to turn said egis into carbuncles, but since THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN WITH SHADOWBRINGERS, and I didn't want to wait until 6.0 to see _if_ it would finally happen, I said fuck it.
> 
> The title is a pun, I KNOW I KNOW OKAY, but you know me, I love it when my titles also have _layers of meaning,_ and my brain wouldn't let this go.
> 
> Also, amandina cake (a Romanian dessert!) is typically referred to as "amandine," but as that is also a name spat out by the game's generator for female elezen, I decided to go with "amandina" as the dessert name (and a couple of Romanian-based websites used the term, so I figured I was okay).
> 
> Special thanks to my FC and our assorted friends in our Discord server, who were cheerleaders and also put up with all my bitching trying to get this damn thing finished before Patch 5.2 drops and breaks me to the point I'm unable to fluff.


End file.
